“But this is another one—his brother Marcy, who came here with these Yanks. They’ll kill him if they try to take him any farther, and I want him left here with me. His partner, too.”
“Well, if this isn’t a little ahead of anything I ever heard of I wouldn’t say so,” exclaimed the corporal. “Where did you pick him up, lieutenant?”
The latter explained briefly, as we shall do presently, adding that he didn’t think he had any right to grant Rodney’s request.
“I didn’t really suppose you had, sir,” said the corporal. “But I was going to make a suggestion. I will ride on until I meet the colonel—that is what my orders oblige me to do—and when I see a chance I’ll say—have you got any grub in the house?”
“Plenty of it, such as it is,” answered Rodney.
“It’s good enough for a hungry soldier, I’ll be bound. Tell your housekeeper to dish up enough for the colonel and three or four of his staff, and I’ll ride on and ask him if he’s hungry. He can’t well help it after such a raid as he has made, and then I’ll tell him that I know where he can get a good breakfast and bring him right here to your house. After he has eaten his fill he’ll be good-natured, and then you and I will talk to him about your cousin.”
The lieutenant laughed heartily as he listened to this programme. “It’s a very ingenious arrangement, corporal,” said he, as the non-commissioned officer beckoned to his men, who were still waiting at the place where they had been halted by the sentry. “And I think it ought to succeed. But as I can’t wait for the colonel without disobeying my orders, which are to scout on ahead, what shall I do with the conscripts?”
“Leave a guard with them,” suggested Rodney.
“I suppose I might do that, and since the colonel is a volunteer like myself, I’ll risk it. If he were a regular I wouldn’t think of it for a moment.”
“Another cousin!” muttered the corporal, as he swung himself into his saddle. “How many more of your family are going to fall down on you out of the clouds? It’s the strangest thing I ever heard of.”